When the news broke on May 11, 1979, it felt like the end of an era that had already turned to dust. Barbara Hutton, the woman the world cruelly dubbed the "Poor Little Rich Girl," was gone. She died in a penthouse suite at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, a place that was more of a gilded cage than a home.
She was 66. To some, she seemed 100. To others, she was still that four-year-old girl who found her mother’s body in 1917.
The official Barbara Hutton cause of death was a heart attack. Plain and simple. But if you look at the medical history, the addiction, and the sheer exhaustion of her final years, "simple" is the last word you'd use. Her heart didn't just stop; it had been under siege for decades by a lifestyle that would have leveled a linebacker.
The Night Everything Stopped
It was a Friday in Los Angeles. Barbara wasn't surrounded by the seven husbands she’d cycled through or the thousands of "friends" who had toasted her at deb parties. She was mostly alone, save for a few staff members and the ghosts of her past.
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She’d been in poor health for years. Honestly, it's a miracle she made it to 66. By the time the paramedics arrived at the Beverly Wilshire, there wasn't much they could do. The heart attack was massive.
Some biographers, like C. David Heymann, suggest she was essentially a skeleton by the end. She was frail. She was tired. The woman who once owned the most expensive jewels in the world and lived in palaces across Tangier and London died with very little left in the tank—physically or financially.
Why Her Heart Finally Gave Out
You can’t talk about the Barbara Hutton cause of death without talking about her "diet." This wasn't some Hollywood fad; it was a decades-long war she waged against her own body.
Early on, her first husband, Prince Alexis Mdivani, reportedly told her she was fat. She wasn't. She was a healthy 148 pounds. But that comment sparked a lifelong battle with anorexia nervosa.
For long stretches of her life, her daily intake was horrifying. We’re talking:
- Up to 20 Coca-Colas a day (often laced with spirits).
- Intravenous "vitamin shots" that were actually cocktails of amphetamines.
- A steady stream of codeine, Valium, and morphine.
- Cigarettes, one after another, until her fingers were stained.
When you live on caffeine, sugar, and heavy narcotics while refusing to eat real food, your heart muscle eventually weakens. It’s called cardiomyopathy, and while the death certificate might say "myocardial infarction," the reality was a slow-motion collapse of her entire system.
The Son She Couldn't Save
If you want to know what really broke Barbara's heart, it wasn't a man. It was the death of her only son, Lance Reventlow, in 1972.
Lance died in a plane crash in the Colorado Rockies. He was 36. After that, Barbara basically checked out. She spent most of her time in bed. She refused to see people. The light just went out.
Medical experts often talk about "Broken Heart Syndrome" (Takotsubo cardiomyopathy). While usually temporary, in a woman with Barbara’s fragile health, the grief of losing her only child was a physical blow. She stopped fighting. She stopped caring. By the time 1979 rolled around, her body was just going through the motions.
Was She Actually Broke?
There’s this famous story that she died with only $3,500 in her bank account. This is one of those facts that people love to repeat because it fits the "tragic heiress" narrative.
Is it true? Kinda.
She definitely blew through her $50 million fortune (which would be nearly $1 billion today). She gave away jewelry to strangers. She paid for people's surgeries. She bought titles for her husbands. She was taken advantage of by almost everyone who entered her orbit.
However, she still had some assets. She had jewelry tucked away. She had some remaining interests. But compared to the Woolworth heiress she started as, she was practically a pauper.
The tragedy wasn't the empty bank account; it was the empty room. Only about ten to sixteen people showed up to her funeral. Think about that. One of the most famous women in the world, and her send-off was quieter than a library.
The Shadow of Her Mother’s Death
To understand how she died, you have to look at how her life began. When she was four, she found her mother, Edna Woolworth, dead.
The official cause for Edna was "suffocation due to mastoiditis," but rumors have always swirled that it was suicide by poison. Barbara carried that trauma every single day. She lived her life expecting tragedy, and she found it.
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Her own death was, in many ways, an echo of that first trauma. A quiet room, a failed heart, and a legacy of "too much money and not enough love."
What We Can Learn From the Woolworth Heiress
It’s easy to look at Barbara Hutton as a caricature of celebrity excess, but her story is a masterclass in the psychological impact of extreme wealth and childhood trauma.
If you're looking for the "actionable" part of this story, it's about the physical cost of emotional neglect.
Insights from her medical history:
- Chemical reliance is a dead end: Mixing stimulants (coke/amphetamines) with depressants (alcohol/morphine) puts an impossible strain on the cardiac system.
- Grief is physical: The loss of her son was the definitive turning point in her health.
- Isolation is a killer: Her final years at the Beverly Wilshire were marked by a lack of genuine social connection, which studies consistently show shortens life expectancy.
Barbara Hutton’s cause of death was officially a heart attack, but she really died from a life spent trying to fill a hole that money couldn't touch. She was buried in the Woolworth family mausoleum in the Bronx, finally back with the family that she spent her whole life both running from and searching for.
Next Steps for Your Research
If you're fascinated by the Gilded Age or the fall of great American dynasties, you should look into the life of Doris Duke. She was Barbara’s contemporary and "rival" heiress, but she took a very different path to protect her fortune and her health. Comparing the two offers a wild look at how two women with identical starts ended up in such different places. You might also find it interesting to look up the "Woolworth Building" in NYC—once the tallest in the world—to see exactly where all that money came from before it was spent on 20 Cokes a day.